Amber Orange
by Gabriella de Villiers
Summary: Gideon and Gwendolyn had a girl named Gabriella. Gabby finds that the circle is starting all over again, and she's the new Opal. She's already having a lot of trouble understanding everything, including that she's immortal, so imagine her stress when she meets the new Amber, Griffin...


_The sorcerer's stone will make me immortal, along with my children, who will be precious gems, too. But not my grandchildren. But that does not matter. Soon I will live forever._

- One of the notes on the secret writings of Count Saint-Germain

_One_

"Hi, Ashlynn!" I called to my best friend.

Ashlynn turned from her conversation with another girl in our classes, Cassandra, but she didn't respond. Instead, Cassandra smiled and waved. "Hi, Gabby!" she called.

My real name was Gabriella, but Ashlynn, Cassandra, and my mother and father called me Gabby. Actually, we call Ashlynn Ashley sometimes, and we call Cassandra Cassie.

I smiled back at her. "Hi, Cassie."

A boy behind him snickered. "Gabby and Cassie. How sweet."

I whirled around to face him. It was a boy in our history class, Charles. "Well, at least they sound better than _Charlesy_," I retorted. His face immediately turned red.

"What, no smart remarks?" asked Cassandra, coming over. "Charlesy? Or maybe Charlie. Nah, that sounds too normal. How about _Charsie_?"

I laughed. "Sure. Charsie."

Cassandra and I walked back over to Ashlynn, whose face had remained serious.

"What were you guys talking about?" I asked. "You know, before I arrived."

"We were talking about our new writing teacher, Mr. Donohue," replied Cassandra.

Ashlynn glared at her. "Don't talk to a loser like Gabriella," she said. She stalked away, though not after giving me the evil eye.

"What was _that_ for?" I asked Cassandra, dumbfounded.

Cassandra shrugged. "I have absolutely no idea. Come on, though. It's time for writing class."

"Hello," said a friendly-looking man from the front of the room. He was standing next to a chocolate-brown haired girl. "My name is Mr. Donohue. I am going to be your new writing teacher. As you already know, your old teacher, Miss Mercedes, moved to New York.

"You have a new classmate, though. Would you like to tell the class your name?"

The girl next to him looked at her toes. "My name's Alexandra," she said quietly. "But you can call me Alexa."

"Hello, Alexa," said the class in unison. Well, most of the class. Charles and some other boys were silent.

Mr. Donohue motioned to the seat next to me, on my left. Cassandra was sitting on my right.

As Alexa silently took a seat next to me, I started feeling queasy. My head started spinning, and I couldn't think straight.

_I don't want to disturb Mr. Donohue, _I thought. _I'll wait until it get's worse._

"It's time for roll call," said Mr. Donohue. "Charles Aikenhead?"

"Cheeseburger."

Mr. Donohue glared at him. "If you are here, say 'present', or 'here'. Actually, this is a good opening for me to tell you about my rules." He held up a yellow sticky note, and continued, "If you do something to displease me, I will write your name down and tell your parents about your behavior. If you displease me twice after that in the next two weeks, I will keep you in after school, and you can have a little talk with me and help me clean up my classroom. Then you can send a little note to the principal."

He looked down on his list. "Cassandra Bates?"

"Here."

"Gabriella de Villiers?"

Ugh. The headache was getting worse. "I'm present."

"Alexand—"

I raised my hand. Mr. Donohue looked at me in surprise. "Yes, Gabriella?"

"I feel s-sick," I said. I looked down, and only then did I see that he was wearing a small signet ring. Strange.

Mr. Donohue looked around. "Ashlynn, can you walk Gabriella home?"

Ashlynn stared at him. "No."

Mr. Donohue looked at her in surprise. "Excuse me?"

"I said, no. I cannot walk Gabriella home."

Mr. Donohue's voice grew stern. "And why not?"

"I do not want to miss any of your class."

Mr. Donohue scribbled a note on his sticky note, then scanned the classroom. He sighed. "Is anyone willing to walk Gabriella home?"

A few people raised their hands, including the new girl, Alexa, and Cassandra. "Okay, Cassandra. You can walk her home."

Cassie rose. "Come on, Gabby. Let's go."

Ashlynn glared at Cassie, then Gabby, then muttered something under her breath, and whispered something in Cassie's ear. Cassie just rolled her eyes and said out loud, "Gabby is not stupid."

Ashlynn's face turned red as Mr. Donohue wrote something else on his sticky note.

I quickly got up, stumbling a little. "Come on, Cassie. Let's go."

"Do you know why Ashley all of the sudden, like, hates me?" I asked Cassie as we walked home.

"I really don't know," admitted Cassie. "Maybe someone told her a lie about you, because they're jealous of you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Why would someone be jealous of _me_?"

Cassie shrugged. "Maybe they admire Ash and want to be her friend?"

We soon reached my house, and I knocked on the door. Our butler,

Mr. Bernard, answered.

He looked surprised to see me. "Why, hello, Miss de Villiers."

"Where's mother?" I asked hurriedly.

"I believe she's in her sewing room—" He was cut short, because I raced past him (well, more like "stumbled by him") and almost knocked him over.

I went (stumbled) up the stairs, and ran into my mother's sewing room.

She looked up. That was the last thing I saw before I was suddenly swept off my feet. My stomach flipped around, and the room blurred in front of me.

The next thing I new, I was standing in a room where I saw an average looking seventeen-year-old sitting on a bed in the middle of the night. She looked up in surprise when she saw me.

"Who are you?" she asked. "And why did you just suddenly appear in my room?"

"Er," I stammered. "My name's Gabriella de Villiers."

She stared at me. "De Villiers?"

I nodded. "Yeah. My dad's name is Gideon de Villiers."

She gasped. "That's your dad? Who's your mom?"

"Gwynneth—" was all I said before I was swept off my feet again.

I opened my eyes to find that I was back in the sewing room, with my mom and her cousin Charlotte (whom I called Aunt Charlotte) staring at me.

My mom was the first to recover from her shock, and she got up and motioned for me to follow her. "Come on. There's somewhere you need to see."

_Two_

"Where are we going, Mother?" I asked as we walked to the front door.

As I pulled on my boots, Mother answered, "To The Temple. I'm going to see if your father can meet us there." She grabbed the telephone, and dialed Father's work.

_What's The Temple? _I thought as my mom started talking on the telephone.

"Can I speak to Gideon de Villiers?" There was a pause, until she started talking again. I could vaguely hear Father talking back to her.

"Hello, Gwenny," he said.

"Hello, Gideon. Can you meet Gabby and I at The Temple? She's the Opal."

I heard him gasp. "She is?"

"Yes. She just had her first trip. Now can you?"

"Yes. Bye, Gwenny."

"Bye."

Mother put the phone down. "Come on, let's go, Gabby."

"What is "the Opal', Mother?"

Mother sighed. "My friends and I will explain it at The Temple."

Mother flagged a taxi, and we pulled ourselves in. We went on a route that ended close to my school, until we stopped outside an old looking building, with Father standing right outside.

Mother pushed me out the door, and I waved to Father. He waved back. "Hello, Gabby!" he yelled.

Me and Mother walked up to Father, and then we walked into the building together.


End file.
